Wow! What a week! We are all tired out, especially Mrs. Stewart. I am sure you are on the edge of your seats to find out what we have been doing. Well here it is, all in full context…without the technical glitch. We did do a blog last week but it went missing in Cyberland.

In computing we have been making Top Trumps cards to help us understand databases a bit better. We also learnt about’ big data’ and ‘digital footprints’ .A lot of people made football Top Trumps, well mainly boys anyway. There were some interesting Top Trumps too, like computer games and singers. A digital footprint is the word used to describe the trail, traces or “footprints” that people leave online. It has been interesting and helpful for heading to secondary school.

In maths we have been learning about angles and the technical language associated with them. Using a protractor, we drew and measured angles. We also looked at fractions of amounts as well.

In literacy we have been writing an opening for a ghost story as part of our narrative unit. We had to use a high level of punctuation and language. Not only that but we had to create short sentences to create suspense. We have been set the challenge for homework to complete these. We will then edit them and create our own short story to be displayed in the library.

Bonjour! In French we have been learning numbers to sixty nine. Can you spot the pattern: Zero, Dix, Vingt, Trente, Quarante, Cinqante, Soixante.

In R.E we have been learning about how we express our beliefs in God. We looked at some ways in which our beliefs are influenced. We looked at a range of art and listened to music and then took time to discuss our views with others.

In history and geography we have started to look at our topic of a local study of St.Ippolyts. We wrote down what we knew and what we wanted to find out about. This is a K.W.L. We will be writing to members of the community to find out about St.Ippolyts. What better resource than using members of the community.

On Monday we had another big splash at Hitchin pool. We improved our skills in swim breaststroke and we all got very wet.

Earlier today (Fri 3rd Oct) was all of the year sixes last harvest festival! We all gave donations to Hitchin Food Bank. This links to this half terms value – Generosity!

We also wanted to tell you about what we have been doing in early morning work. We have been doing dingbats and word ladders. You can try a few as part of our Family Week activity day. We are looking forward to Friendship Week next week too!

Reminder, Important!

No swimming or Code club on Monday due to the choir going to St. Albans Cathedral, we wish them the best of luck.

Thank you for taking the time to read the weekly blog and sorry again for the glitch last week. Goodbye!

This week has gone by so quickly as everyone has been working really hard – including Mrs Stewart! I bet you're wondering what we’ve been doing this week; here is what we’ve been doing!

On Monday we had our 2nd swimming lesson. It was great fun! We have been practising all the strokes including front crawl, backstroke, breaststroke and even some butterfly. Earlier on that day we were doing English where we were creating effective settings using ‘adventurous adjectives’, adverbs, similes and metaphors. Our end settings were really interesting and were very adventurous! We also did some puzzling Maths. We were rounding numbers to 10, 100 and 1000 and we were also halving and doubling small and bigger number using different mental strategies to help us with multiplication.

Some of us, who are in choir, went to Princess Helena College to do a singing workshop with a top conductor Rufus Frowde. If you can remember he did the wonderful Singing Playgrounds with us 4 years ago! We created a huge concert with different songs including a polish song called Plynie Statek. One of the lines meant “Pass me the banana crate” in Polish. He was also the conductor at the Royal Albert Hall last year. There were four schools there and we were the only school to sing a solo piece. We sung the Harvest Samba and Mrs Stewart was very proud of us.

We also continued to improve our sketching and drawing skills by using hatching and shading while drawing objects. Already we are beginning to make progress. This was off course the first week of clubs which we look forward to either at lunch or after school and appreciate having the opportunity to attend these.

In Religious Education we are looking at how people express their feelings about God. First we looked at the question ‘What is commitment? We all then had a chance to say what we felt it was. Next Mrs Stewart asked ‘What is commitment in Class 5? As a class, including Mrs Stewart, came up with what we thought. We then read a few examples of other children’s feelings and tried to work out what they were committed to looking more at faith and belief. It was really interesting.

To end the week we were visited by ‘PHASE’. This is a local charity in Hitchin set up by local churches to serve schools. They provide fun workshops for Year 6.Our first workshop was called ‘On Your Marks!’ Paul and 3 other members came along to help us to focus on how much we can get out of Year 6 as possible, with one eye on moving to secondary school. They very kindly helped us not to feel scared about secondary but to look forward to it. They also played games which helped us talk over with our friends some of our worries. Hopefully everyone shared the sheets that we filled in with their parents as we will be going to visit schools soon.

Good Luck to the boys football team playing against St Andrews. We look forward to hearing the result on Monday and for another week of learning.

Who can believe it our first full week has been and gone in Class 5. We are delighted that all of the Class 1 reception children are with us and that our buddies are settling in well. We were very proud of them in the first celebration assembly on Friday and some receiving badges too.

So what learning took place in Class 5 last week? We took time on Friday to reflect on the week and here is what we came up with as a class.

In English we spent time looking,discussing and exploring narrative genres. While looking at different extracts we thought about the characters, setting, plot , vocabulary and writing techniques and how they related to the genre. We focused on science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and historical texts.We then chose to present our findings in a poster to be displayed in the school library. This way we can encourage others to think about the books they choose to read and encourage a love of reading.

In Maths we spent time on improving our mental methods of calculation and looked at a number of ways to do this. We realised that not everyone will agree on the same method but looked at partitioning, doubling, halving, rounding to help us. We have also been getting to grips with our times tables and recalling these much quicker.

We have also had our first PE sessions of swimming and hockey which were great fun. Some of us also started music lessons either recorder, violin or wider opps and we are all looking with Mrs Stewart on reading and writing music in class. In art we looked at using viewfinders and how these would help us create more detailed observational drawings. We also made a value strip and looked at different drawing techniques using shading and hatching in both pencil and coloured pencil.

In Science we started to look at our topic of 'Animals including humans'. Our first session looked at the scientific vocabulary used to identify and name the main parts of the human circulatory system, and explain the functions of the heart, blood vessels and blood. We watched a scientfic diagram to see how blood moves from the heart, delivering oxygen and nutrients to every part of the body. On the return trip , the blood picks up waste products so that your body can get rid of them.

Did you know : The body of an adult contains over 60,000miles of blood vessels!

A 'heartbeat' is really the sound of the valves in the heart closing as they push blood through its chambers. Your heart beats some 30 million times a year!

We then looked at using cardboard tubes of various lengths and how we could develop this into a science experiment, as we learnt about the first stethoscope, which was invented by the French physcian Rene Laennec in 1816. He had used a long, rolled paper tube to funnel the sound.

In computing we looked at 'Big Data'and what this was and how it is used in the world. We used the internet and did a lot of discussion on e safety. We shared examples and looked at the positive and negative aspects of this. It was very interesting.

This is not everything but just gives you an idea of what we did and all in a week. Congratulations to Rhys and Laney who are our Year 6 school council representatives who will do a great job. Finally, i'd just like to say a big well done to everyone in Class 5 for a busy, fun hard working week. Remember your homework and home school contact books,see you all on Monday.

I would like to say how pleased and proud I am of Class 5 already. First impressions do count and all of the children have certainly taken on the role of Year 6 brilliantly. Positions of responsibility have been given and they are doing a great job. We have started as we mean to go on with working hard and giving our best. Thank you to all the parents who have already checked and kept in touch via the new home school contact books and hope that you and the children find them useful.

We have covered a range of writing and maths already and spoken a great deal about presentation. If you are interested in the Y6 office assistant position please remember your applications need to be with Mrs Peddie by Wednesday 10th September.

Spellings will be issued tomorrow and the children will copy these into their home school contact book. On Thursday, alongside the curriculum leaflets, you will receive another spelling sheet, with a covering note explaining what the children must do. Our aim is to keep you updated as much as possible with our learning in class through a weekly blog either by the children or myself.

This half term has been busy for Class 5 because year 6 have been building towards taking their tricky SATs papers and year 5 have been working hard to keep up with us! Year 6 woke up all this week for a yummy breakfast cooked by Mr. Sharp and Mrs. Harrington-Smith, so a great big thank you from all of year 6!Life hasn't just been about tests though, so here is a flavour of what else we have been learning about (not necessarily in chronological order).

This Thursday we started looking at the work of Lowry. Mrs Racher gave us a snippet of one of his pictures and we had to scale it up and paint it carefully with water colours, at the end of the lesson we took them into the hall and arranged the big version, it looked fantastic.

Also, class 2 did an assembly, it was brilliant and their voices were so clear we heard every word even though we were at the back.

Mrs. Racher has been teaching us science this half term, we learnt what seeds need to germinate. We set up an investigation to see what might affect broad beans and the speed they would germinate. Some of them germinated and started to grow, they are now planted in the school garden.

In PE we have been rehearsing for sports day, practising all the events and getting excited for sports day!Of course we have been doing much more but we can't fit it all in. So that is it from us but make sure you keep checking the Class 5 blog for updates!